D
DEAR SISTERS:—Another of those pleasant excursional entertainments which this nation gives to genius in the female line has been offered to me, and I accepted. For my part, I think the country ought to be encouraged in giving these little testimonials to her favored children. She hasn't done much of that in former years, but has practised a good deal more on foreigners than she has ever thought of doing where home-made writers are concerned.
Them Japanee potentials always seem to go along when an entertainment is got up for me, and, if that didn't rather mix things up, I should be glad of it; for Mr. Iwakura is just splendid in his black coat and stovepipe hat, and talks beautifully with his little black eyes; I feel it in my bones he has not left a heathenish impediment behind, or anything that ought tostand between him and a wife who might carry fresh missionary spirit into his benighted land.
Of course, all the other Japanees were on hand, and seemed to feel proud and chipper, as if the party had been made for them instead of me; but I didn't mind that a bit. Even if they did think so, what harm? There is so much happiness in delusions, that I wouldn't rob those nice-looking heathens of one for the world.
Besides the Japanees, a very distinguished party had been invited to go with me, and I couldn't help but feel the whole thing a triumph.
There was Postmaster-General Creswell, with a head of hair and a beard that warmed you, it was so silky and bright. There was his wife, too, a real pretty creature, with manners as sweet as her face; and Mrs. Fish, almost a mate for a lady I will not name for queenliness; and Governor Cook with his wife. Besides these, there were lots of young people, and old people, and middle-aged people, filling car after car, till we had a whole train all to ourselves. The party was large, but so is a genuine New England heart, and I managed to make them all welcome in an off-handed, queenly way, which I hope was understood. It certainly was by Mr. Iwakura, who lifted his stovepipe hat and bowed like a native Vermonter before he sat down.
Sisters, I do think there is a meaning in that—a Japanee isn't likely to study the elegancies of our manners for nothing. Still, I wish he wasn't a heathen. The Greek Church of Russia sat heavy on my conscience, but a heathen! I shall have to meet all this politeness with the icy chill of Christian reserve, unless—the thing is possible, for, to love, all things are so—that heathen should adopt our religion with the stovepipe hat.
There was a thing that troubled me a good deal before I came away from the hotel that morning. I have been told that Mr. Grant and our Vermont statesman have got up a little spirit of rivalry about being President—a thing I neverdreamed of, they seemed such good friends, and, till now, I thought Mr. Grant had kind of half invited his old friend to take the chair. But it isn't so by any manner of means, and I'm afraid there may be some little dispute about it in the end, which will be unpleasant to those who like them both.
Now, sisters, here comes in the benefit of being a female, which is great in such perplexing cases. Female women are not expected to be consistent, and they're not expected to take sides for any great length of time. They can just climb any fence that comes handy, and sit on it with the dignity of hen turkeys at sundown if they have a mind to, and no one has a right to scare them up. But, considering myself as an exceptional female, whose duty it is to have ideas, I scorn the fence, and come right up to the crib, corn or no corn.
It is a duty I owe to the State, and from that I shall never turn aside. Besides—I own it boldly—in this case duty and a hilarious state of pleasure unite and make me jubilant as a Fourth of July salute. I like Greeley because he is first-rate as an author, an editor, and a man. I admire Grant as a brave soldier and as a man too, but then, the old State! I don't care who knows it—from this day out, white is my color.
But, feeling this in my very bones, how could I accept the great national compliment of a special train filled with admiring friends from the Government, which is General Grant?
I spoke of this to Cousin Dempster, and, says he:
"This makes no difference in the world. Take all you can from the Government. That is high patriotism."
I shook my head.
"Cousin," says I, "it kind of seems to me that this special train is a sort of a trap. How can I, a free-born Vermonter—national in some respects, and brimming over with first-class patriotism, but Vermont to the back-bone—first and foremost, lead off a party like this, one car choke full of Mr. Grant's cabinet people. Now, if Mr. Greeley and Mr. Grant should rile up against each other—which I hope they won't—don't you see that I am in an awful mixed position?—the NationalGovernment on one side with that stupendous soldier at the head, and that great white-hatted Vermonter on the other?"
"That is, you want to be neutral," says Dempster.
"Well, yes—kind of neutral," says I, "and a little for both."
"Not exactly on the fence, but cautious," says he; "keep your boat in harbor till the tide rises and the wind blows, then hoist sail and catch up with the old craft that has been tugging on in shallow water?"
"No," says I, feeling the old Puritan blood beginning to boil up. "That may answer for some people, but not for me. An idea has just struck me; a woman's political ideas should be suggested, not proclaimed."
Without speaking another word, I put on my things, went right down to Pennsylvania Avenue, and bought a soft white hat, a little broad in the brim, which I turned up on one side. Then I went into a milliner's store, carrying it in my hand, and made a woman curl a long white feather over the crown, which gave the whole affair a touch of the beehive, stamping it with beautiful femininity.
With this hat on my head, and a double-breasted white jacket over my black alpaca, I took my honored place in the cars that day.
Of course I sat in the cabinet car, feeling myself the sole representative of Vermont in that august company. The ladies looked at me sidewise when I came in; some of the cabinet men half winked at each other and tried to smile. But that white hat was no laughing matter, and they wilted down before it.
D
DEAR SISTERS:—The train started, and there I sat in my glory till we got to Annapolis, just the sleepiest town, crowded full of the oldest houses and the slowest people that I ever saw in my born days. Some colored persons were dawdling around the depot, and a few lazy white folks passing down the street, stopped to look at us as we got out of the cars. Especially my white hat and double-breasted jacket seemed to take them.
Once I heard something that sounded like the beginning of a cheer, but the voices were so lazy that they couldn't carry it out, so it muttered itself to death, and that was the end of it.
Twenty of the Japanees were with me when I alighted from the car and spread my white parasol, which hovered like a dove over us, for I made it flutter beautifully as we passed along.
The cabinet people followed after, and just as we were forming to go down street, like a military training, my white hat and feather leading them on, a gentleman came up to us and began to shake hands all round. He was a tall, genteel sort of a person, with light hair and a beard soft and silky as corn tassels; but all under his eyes, blue powder marks were scattered, as if he'd spent half his life firing off Fourth of July powder salutes, and had burst up on some of them.
While I was wondering who it could be, Mr. Robeson, who has some dealings with navy yards and shipping, come up to where I stood, and says he:
"Miss Frost, allow me to present Commodore Worden, the gentleman who distinguished himself on the first Monitor."
Sisters, that minute the powder marks on Worden's handsome face were glorified in my eyes. I reached out my hands. I pressed his, my beaming eyes covered him with particularadmiration. Feeling as if I were the colonel of that company, I longed to lift my white hat and give him a military salute. What I did say was significant.
"Worden," says I, "when certain events come about—I say nothing, but this hat and jacket are typical of what I mean—when these great and luminous events fill the hemisphere your glorious bravery on that iron flat-boat shall have its full record. I will myself send your picture to the great Grand Duke of all the Russias, and if there is a higher notch in the public shipping than you have, I know nothing of the friend whose colors I wear if anybody stands before you. I have seen the picture of your Monitor. To my eye it looks like a flat-iron, with the handle in the water; but it did good work, and so did you. Grant knows it. My own immortal statesman will appreciate it."
Commodore Worden bowed, and smiled, and squoze my hand so long that I began to feel anxious about my white gloves. But he dropped it at last, and we all moved on, my white feather waving in front, just like that which King Henry of Navarre wore in battles. Only mine was a peaceful emblem, dyed in the milk of human kindness, and curled up in the sunshine of prosperity.
We marched through dull streets and round deserted corners, cutting in and out every which way till we came to a large gate, which shut the Navy Yard out from the rest of mankind.
Then we filed through into a beautiful meadow, with the grass cut short, sprinkled over with trees, and cut into footpaths. Part of it was bounded by water, the rest by rows of handsome houses and great buildings that looked like factories shut up for want of work.
The minute I and Mr. Iwakura walked through the gate, bang! went a cannon; bang, bang, bang! seventeen times.
"What on earth is that?" says I, turning to Dempster, who was just behind me.
"It is a salute for us," says he.
"Us!" says I, with accents of disdain that put him in his place at once.
"For you, then," says he, smiling in a way I didn't like, for, having no envy in my own disposition, I cannot endure it in others.
Mr. Iwakura and I walked on slowly. He looked at me and smiled as the guns kept going off, till I counted seventeen; then they stopped and I was glad of it, for I remembered that our meeting-house bell tolls once for every year, when a person dies, and I felt a little anxious about the number of guns they might pile on to live folks. But they stopped short at seventeen, which is an age no girl need be ashamed to own, and which showed how young some persons can look in spite of hard literary toil.
Well, first we went into Commodore Worden's house, where Mr. Iwakura and I were introduced to Mrs. Worden and some other ladies. Then the rest came in for a little notice, and we filed off into the grounds again, where there was a general training of boys in blue jackets, with buttons and things, all armed with guns, which they handled like old militia men. Sometimes, when they poked their guns right at us, I kind of got behind Mr. Iwakura, who, being small, wasn't much of a shelter, but better than nothing. In fact, I was rather glad when this part of the fun died out.
After this, we went into one of the big houses where the blue boys live, and a whole lot of little, make-believe ships were shown to us, and two Japanee boys told Mr. I. how they were worked—which would have been interesting, only we didn't know a word of that language, nor much about the baby-house of ships, and didn't listen to what was said in English.
Then the boys in blue and buttons went into the meadow again, and got out a lot of small cannon, and banged, and ran in lines and squads down to the river, as if they were awful mad with the water and meant to dam it—dam it up, I wish you to understand, for even indirect profanity isn't in my nature.
After this, we all went down to a great, lumbering old ship, which is all the home these blue boys have the first year they come to the Annapolis school, which, being a sailor institution, gives them a taste for creeping into holes and sleeping on a yard or two of rope swung to the ship's beams—which may be pleasant fun, but doesn't look like it.
Sisters, it was getting along in the day, and, though in a certain sense spiritualized by genius, I was hungry. Mr. Iwakura, too, had a pitiful look in his black eyes; but a storm of music called us from hankering thoughts, and we all streamed, at a faster double-quick than the boys could show, into the great dining-room of one of the big houses. A splendid table was set out there, which we gathered round like a half-starved regiment on training-day. Then began such a practice in cider bottles, flying corks, and cider foaming and fizzing into glasses, as beat all the cannon and howitzer blazings of the day—for that ended in something, and the rest didn't.
It is astonishing what effect eating and drinking has on the feet; I could hardly keep from dancing all the way from that dining-hall to the other building, which is kept especially for dancing. Well, we did dance, for the music just took one right into the midst of it, want to or not. Besides, we hadn't been to a tomb, and nobody had been killed, so we just went in for it. My alpaca dress isn't over long, and I wasn't afraid of showing my feet when there was no train to tangle them up. We danced with our bonnets and hats on—we ladies, I mean—and the way my white feather rose and fell and fluttered over the rest was enough to wake up the American heart in every bosom present.
D
DEAR SISTERS:—You have heard of Mr. Shakespeare, a writer of old England, who died, years and years ago, in a little country place in England. He was celebrated for several things besides writing. Going to sleep under trees is one of them; shooting deer that belonged to somebody else—who took him up and made an awful time about it before a justice of the peace, who fined him, or something—is another. Then, again, he married an elderly girl, and forgot to live with her ever so long. While she stayed at home, he went up to London, and wrote plays and played them before her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, who ought to have reminded him of his married elderly girl, being her own royal self of that class, only not married. There is no reason to think she did have much influence in that direction though, for that particular queen was more celebrated for keeping husbands away from their wives than bringing them cosily together.
The truth is, from the very first—when she got up a series of romping platonics with Lord Seymour, her step-mother's husband, to her last, gray-headed old flirtation with the young Essex—her taste ran against the practical idea of husbands living with their own wives. That non-matrimonial creature may have tried her power on Shakespeare—who knows?
Sisters, there is one part of this man's life and character that may shock your religious feelings.He wrote plays;he acted plays too; and that female queen encouraged him in it. Now, ever since I went to see the "Black Crook," I scorn myself for ever having one mite of charity for such things, and I haven't the conscience to say one word in their favor to you, as a Society. Still, this Mr. Shakespeare did write some thingsthat might have sounded tolerably well in a lecture or a sermon that wasn't too strictly doctrinal.
Last night I was talking with a lawyer from away "Out West," who spoke real kindly about Mr. Shakespeare's writings, and seemed to think if he had put off being born until now, and settled "Out West," where he could have given him a hint now and then, he might have made a first-rate literary man. "Even as it is," says he, "I do my best to make him popular, for he wrote some very readable things—very readable, indeed. For instance, not long since, in an exciting slander case, I quoted these lines, with a burning eloquence that lifted the judge right off from his bench:
"'He,' says I, 'that steals my purse, steals stuff;'Twas something, t'aint nothing, t'was mine,'Tis hisen, and has been slave to thousands;But he that hooketh from me my good name,Grabs that which don't do him no good,But makes me feel very bad indeed.'"
"'He,' says I, 'that steals my purse, steals stuff;'Twas something, t'aint nothing, t'was mine,'Tis hisen, and has been slave to thousands;But he that hooketh from me my good name,Grabs that which don't do him no good,But makes me feel very bad indeed.'"
"'He,' says I, 'that steals my purse, steals stuff;'Twas something, t'aint nothing, t'was mine,'Tis hisen, and has been slave to thousands;But he that hooketh from me my good name,Grabs that which don't do him no good,But makes me feel very bad indeed.'"
"Is that the genuine old English that Mr. Shakespeare wrote in?" says I.
"Oh, that is the beauty of it," says he. "Shakspeare was no doubt a very respectable writer, but perfection is the watch-word of modern progress. Of course one doesn't introduce a quotation of his without all the modern improvements. Shakespeare—"
"Mr. Shakspeare," says I, determined to keep up the dignity of authorship with my last breath.
"Well, Mr. Shakspeare would have made a very superior writer if he had lived in this country and been fostered by an American Congress."
"An American Congress," says I. "What on earth did that ever do for writers?"
"Why, don't it publish books for the members to give away. Isn't that encouraging literature?"
I said nothing, never having read one of the books in my life, and never having seen any one that had.
"Then," says he, "hasn't every man that can write the life of a President of these United States before his election, been made an ambassador, or counsel, or something? Didn't Pierce send Hawthorne to Liverpool, not because of his transcendant genius, but for the reason that he had written a paltry life of himself?"
"Mr.Hawthorne," says I, with expressive emphasis.
"And didn't General Grant send Colonel Badeau to London, after his life was taken by that young man?"
"I give in," says I; "the literature of this country has been fostered beautifully. Hawthorne was rewarded for degrading the finest genius this country has ever known, by writing a commonplace life of a ordinary man; and Adam Badeau was made a colonel, and is now figuring in London, because all the talent he ever had was crowded into such a book. Yes, I give in. But one thing is to be relied on, each of the Presidents struggling to rule over this country next, has brains enough to write his own life. Grant has written his out with a sword, and Greeley can handle his own pen. He won't have any debts of that kind to pay off, and I'm awfully mistaken if the authors of this country won't stand almost as high with him as corporals in the army do now. In his time bayonets will be stacked, and pens have their day. During the next four years I shouldn't wonder if Mr. Shakspeare might have a little chance if he were alive."
"That puts me in mind," says the Western gentleman, "that a statue of Shakspeare is going to be unveiled in the New York Central Park to-morrow."
"To-morrow?" says I; "then I'm off to New York to see it done. By and by, when we have put all the British authors in marble, some one born in America may get a chance."
"But Shakespeare belongs to the world," says Cousin Dempster, who was sitting near me.
"All men or women of genius belong to the world," says I, "just as far as the world knows them; but the country in which a great man or woman was born, and has lived and written,is the place where he should be first honored. Have we done anything of that kind yet? I'm not saying one word against Mr. Shakespeare; his monument ought to be in the most beautiful spot we have; but let the next statue be that of some first-class American. Mr. Shakespeare belongs to us as much as he did to England, because when he lived England was our country, and he belongs to us now. But since then we have cut loose from the Old World, and built up a powerful nation, where great authors, both men and women, have worked out their own birthright of genius, with no help but the power God has given them—worked it out, too, with not half the recognition that our Government and our people, to their shame be it spoken, have given to coarser and weaker intellects from over the sea."
"Why, Phœmie," says Cousin Dempster, "don't get so excited; do you know that you are talking like a book?"
"It must be an English book if any American takes much notice of it," says I; "but rile me up on this subject, and I don't know or care how I talk. In our part of the country we are Americans to the backbone, and we mean to keep so."
"Well, but this statue of Shakespeare was first thought of by the actors who have been living over his plays years and years—Booth, Wallack, Wheatley, and your dead and gone Halleck, set it a-going.
"What Shakespeare did for theatres, theatre people know how to acknowledge. They have some spirit; but what author ever comes forward and asks a place for his fellow-author? How can they expect the country to be generous to them when they do nothing for each other?"
It kind of took me down when Cousin Dempster said this, and not having anything to observe, I said nothing, but got right up, and says I:
"If we mean to start for New York, it's time to be getting ready."
W
WELL, sisters, we got to New York in time, and went right up to Central Park, which was just one garden of flowers, all in full bloom. The trees, too, were of a bright, lovely green, and the little lakes blue as a baby's eye, sparkled and rippled wherever the sun shone and the wind swept over them. A wide green circle, with lots of trees shading it, and great heaps of bushes heavy with pink and white flowers everywhere around it, was just alive with men and women. They were all in their Sunday go-to-meeting best, some on the grass, some in carriages, and all chatting, laughing, and enjoying themselves mightily, but crowding toward one spot.
Under these trees, where the grass was greenest, and the flowers brightest, there was a sort of pyramid, covered over with star-spangled banners of bright silk. Sweeping round that, like a ring cut in two, were platforms with rows on rows of seats, built against flag-poles, from which ever so many flags were a-streaming out on the wind. These seats were crammed and crowded full of people. The centre platform was roofed in, and just running over with men holding fiddles, drums, twisted horns, trumpets, great puffy bass viols, and everything else that could turn music into thunder, and thunder back into music.
There was an inside circle nearer to the pyramid, and our tickets took us there, among the greatest people of the country, which was an honor I felt in behalf of the society. This was the penetralia, which, I suppose, from the first syllable, was got up especially for authors. I took my seat in that honored place, and, spreading my white parasol, looked about me, feeling the exaltation of my position in a modest way, but willing that others should make their little mark even if I was there.
Well, the first thing that came was a crash that made me hop right up, and near about break my parasol. No wonder; for more than a hundred men were just flooding the air with music, that rose and fell and fluttered till the trees and bushes shook under it. I do believe the sweetness and the thundering outbursts would have inspired me to break into some good old tune myself, if there hadn't been so much rustling and talking and flirting all around me. As it was, there arose a clatter of confusing sounds that gave one's nerves a jerky feeling that I for one haven't got over yet. I do wonder why city people have no better manners. I should just as soon think of speaking out in meeting, as of chattering when others wanted to listen to music.
Well, after a hard tussle between the people and the music, the people came out first-best—more shame to 'em. Then a gentleman they call Judge Daly—a real nice-looking person—got out and reached out his arms toward the pyramid, wrapped up in flags.
The minute he did this all the people began to stamp and clap their hands, and fling out their handkerchiefs as if they had gone crazy. The more he tried to speak, the more they stamped and clapped and shouted; and he kept a-bowing real graceful, till by and by they stopped and let him speak.
Then he went right on and told them all about the statue, which ought to have been done and put up on the day that Mr. Shakespeare was three hundred years old, only the statue wasn't ready then, but that was of no account, when we considered how beautiful the whole thing was, and what an honor it would be to American art. Judge Daly was all alive with this idea, and spoke splendidly. When he had done, I just laid down my parasol, and clapped my hands till a pair of three-button gloves gave out. Sisters, that one clap cost me just three dollars and fifty cents.
When Judge Daly sat down, a gentleman walked up to the pyramid, and stood by it looking awful pale and anxious, as if the thousands and thousands of eyes bent on him had drawnall the blood from his body. He was a fine, handsome-looking man, and somehow I took a shine to him at first sight.
All at once his face flushed up, and I saw that he held the end of a rope in his hand. While I was a-looking and wondering, he gave the rope a jerk, and down come those silk flags, all in a wild flutter, and there stood Mr. Shakespeare as if he'd just stopped to rest a minute after walking, and had been struck with an idea which he was thinking over. His head was just a little bent, and he held a book up against his bosom, with his finger between the leaves.
Mr. Shakespeare must have been a proper handsome man about two hundred and seventy-five years ago. No wonder that elderly young lady fell in love with him. I could have done it myself, not because I am elderly, far from it, but because he was—well, I suppose because he was Shakespeare, and awful handsome at that.
Queen Elizabeth must have given him the suit of clothes he wears; for when I said his trousers were too puffy and short for my liking, and his cloak nothing to speak of in the way of a covering, a gentleman near me said the dress was Elizabethan.
This rather set me against the memory of Mr. S. He ought to have died rather than take anything from that cruel, hard-hearted old—I was going to say old maid, but refrain, not wishing to be hard on her, cruel as she was.
Oh, mercy, what a shout that was. It seemed as if every heart in that great crowd had burst out in a glow of admiration. Mine just fluttered like a night hawk. I stood up and whirled the white parasol over my head; more than that, I split the other glove, and was glad of it.
That Mr. Ward had been working eight years on the statue he had just uncovered, and our enthusiasm was his best reward. There he stood face to face with the people, who were to give him pain or cruel disappointment. I felt for him. No wonder his face turned white and then red as fire. Years of labor for one hour of triumph. He deserved all the praise he got, and that was stupendous.
The statue was now all uncovered, and the sunshine lay upon it. Sisters, it is beautiful; but one thing troubles me—the color. Was Mr. Shakespeare of that complexion, or has the great man been darkened out of regard to the Fifteenth Amendment and Mr. Sumner? When a man is statued in bronze, does he always turn out a mulatto? I don't like the idea—it's carrying the Civil Rights Bill too far.
Judge Daly had made a present of this statue to the park, in his speech. Now Mr. Stebbins, the President of the Park Commissioners, came forward and thanked him for it in the nicest way. He was just the man to do it, though he is a broker and banker; for he cares quite as much for art as he does for gold. Wherever he finds genius, this man spends his money like dew upon it. It was he that gave Miss Kellogg her first start in music, and a good many other stragglers have secretly been helped by him when they felt almost like giving up. For my part, I honor and glorify such men.
The next thing I saw was a grand-looking old man, with a long, white beard falling over his bosom, and soft, white hair floating about his head. I held my breath when this man arose, and while the crowd yelled and shouted and made the ground tremble under me, I looked at him with my heart in my eyes. What Shakespeare was to England, this old man is to America—the best part of the land that gave him birth. He made a long speech, a beautiful speech. I have read his poems, so have you; but the poetry of his spoken words, of his voice and looks, is grander than written language, and nothing that I can write will give you the least idea of it.
For my part, I hope that the next statue set up in the park will be that of William Cullen Bryant. What is the reason that we should wait till a man is dead before we give back something for the genius with which he has honored his country? The readers that may come up three hundred years from now owe him no more than we do. What are we waiting for, then? When Mr. Bryant sat down, there was another earthquake of applause, which had but just time to stop, when itburst out again for Edwin Booth. The best actor, and one of the handsomest men you ever saw, came forward and read a long piece of poetry, which just made the blood stir like wine in your veins. There was a double gust of genius in this poem; because the poet Stoddard wrote it, and then Booth gave it the fire of his soul and the music of his voice, which seemed to float and whisper around the statue long after the crowd had scattered itself over the park.
D
DEAR SISTERS:—Don't be startled; don't hold up your hands in holy astonishment when I tell you that I—Phœmie Frost—your moral and—I say it meekly—religious missionary, have been to a horse-race. I am shocked myself now, in the cool of the morning, not exactly because I went, but from what happened after I got there.
Have I done wrong? Can a missionary, without knowledge, do her duty? If she knows nothing of sin, how can she warn against sin?
Then, again, is the running of swift horses sinful?
Sisters, I am troubled. The more one knows, the more one is perplexed and put about. It is so easy to condemn things by the wholesale that you know nothing about. One can speak so positive about them, for total ignorance admits of no argument, and is entirely above all evidence. That is why ignorant stubbornness is so self-satisfied and comfortable.
After all, I begin to think that "ignorance is bliss." Is there anything on this earth more snoozily comfortable than a litter of white pigs revelling with their mother in a mud-puddle—say in August? What do these contented animalscare for the mud that soils their whiteness, with the pink skin shining through—rosy pigs, as one may call the kind I am speaking of. Think of them muzzling about in the rily water, free as air; then turn to your learned pig, chained to a master by the forced action of its own intellect—poor thing! obliged to play cards with its fore-foot, teach geography, and cipher out numbers like a schoolmaster—and then say if ignorance isn't bliss! Look in the little black eyes of the animal, and see the sad and hungry look that knowledge has brought to him!
To know is to want—to want is to suffer.
Where was I? Speaking about horses, naturally I wandered off down to other grades of animals—the laziest, largest, best-natured creatures of all—but, as you may observe with propriety, not suggestive of horse-races, which I admit and apologize for.
Well, right or wrong, I have been to the races at Jerome Park, which is a hollow among the hills, clear out of New York, and the other side of Harlem River. There, every spring and fall, the best horses owned about here are set a-going like wildfire, and the one that beats is thought the world of.
The park isn't much of a piece of woods, after all; a good-sized maple camp in Vermont has got twice as many trees, but then a good deal of it is turned out to grass. Then, again, a level turnpike curls in a ring all round one of the hills, and on the top of that is a kind of hotel, or long tavern, with a tremendous stoop stretched around it, where the upper-crust of fast horsedom crowd in to see the creatures run.
On the other hillside, right against the tavern, is a great long, open shed, with seats after seats sloping down from the inside, where the lower-crust of fast horsedom crowd in from the railroads, and so on. They have to pay for going in, but, for all that, haven't a right to go across to the upper side, which must be aggravating.
All the men that go to the upper-crust tavern wear a huge round thing with a ribbon fastened to their coats, and strutawfully under them, as if they were the crowning glory of all creation. Maybe they are; I don't know, not being highly educated in horsiness.
Well, Cousin Dempster has one of these medals, which he hitched to the lappel of his coat that morning. Cousin E. E. had been fidgeting awfully all the week about a dress she was bent on wearing, and when it didn't come home from the dress-maker's till late the night before, I really thought she would take a fit right before us all. But the dress came at last, and then she wheeled right round the other way with joy.
"Such a dress!" says she. "There won't be anything to match it. All my own idea, too"
Here she tumbled a cataract of silk from a great paper box, and shook it out till it fluttered like the leaves on a young maple-tree.
"Isn't it superb?" says she; "peacock green and peacock blue intermingled like a poem, sloping folds up the front breadth two and two, bunching splendidly behind, frilled, flounced, corded, folded, trailing, and yet demi to a large extent. Cousin Frost, Cousin Frost! did you ever see anything so original, so—so—"
"Scrumptious," says I, a-helping her out, "peacock green and peacock blue; if we only had the half-moons on the train now."
She looked at me earnestly; her soul had taken in the thought, and it burned in her eyes.
"Oh, why didn't I think of that?" says she.
I smiled. It takes genius to understand the fine irony of genius. Cousin E. E. is bright, but the subtle originality of a new thought isn't in her. That usually does in a family what this Government is trying so hard for—centralizes itself in one person.
It is not difficult to say where this supreme essence condenses itself in our family. Still, I do not object to other members making their little mark, and if E. E. can make hers in the peacock line, why not?
To my fancy, that dress was a nation sight too much. It was all in a flutter, silk heaped on silk. E. E. tried it on, and fairly waded in silk when she walked. There was neither elegance nor simplicity in it, nothing but a sickening idea of extravagance and money.
E. E. looked like a peacock, walked like a peacock, and seemed to feel like one. She took a little mite of a bonnet from a box that came just after the dress, and put it on. It was shaped like the small end of a loaf of sugar, with a pink rose and a bunch of green and blue feathers on the top, bee-hivy in height, but brigandish in shape, slightly pastoral, and a little military.
"Isn't it stylish?" says she, setting it on the top of her curls and puffs, with such an air.
"Original," says I, "but you know which ismycolor."
E. E. laughed till the feathers shook on her head.
"Oh!" says she, "Dempster and I are prudent. After the middle of July perhaps we may—"
"Till then," says I, "you'll sit on the fence peacock fashion."
We had more words, for E. E. is nobody's fool; but just then Cecilia came in, and I made myself scarce.
W
WELL, we started for the races in high feather. Cousin D. had just got his open carriage cushioned off beautifully. His horses had rosettes on their heads, and little looking-glasses about as big as a dollar flashing between their ears.
Cousin E. E. wore the peacock dress and the brigandish hat.The parasol had a red coral handle, and, to own the truth, no horse on the race-ground looked faster than she did.
I followed her modestly. My pink silk seemed to grow brighter when it settled down against her green and blue; my white hat was looped up on one side with a white cockade, and the white feather streamed out banner fashion. With me all was simplicity, patriotism, and whiteness—pure as the distinguished individual of whom they were a delicate typification.
The drive up to that race-ground was just too lovely for anything. The horses fairly flew. The wind just shook the white fringe on my parasol, and kept my emblematical feather dancing after my hat. Cousin Dempster drove, and that girl Cecilia sat high up on the front seat by him, with her short dress ruffled and pinked about the bottom like a full-blown poppy; her—well, ankles visible to the knees, and all her hair floating out loose and crinkly. I say nothing, but ask you, as females of experience, what kind of a woman will that stuck-up child make, in the long run?
The race ground was gay as a general training when we got there. It had rained lately; the trees and grass were green as green could be, and thousands of red-birds, yellow-hammers, blue-jays, and golden-robins, seemed to have settled down around the long tavern, the hill-side, and under the old trees. I declare, the sight was beautiful.
Cousin D. had to show his badge and thing at the gate; then we drove up to the long tavern with a dash, hopped gracefully out of the carriage, and walked right in among the great crowd of gentlemen and ladies chatting, laughing, and moving about the long stoop.
Sisters, I do try to be humble, but it is awful hard work. When I went into that crowd, with my pink silk trailing and that white feather all afloat, the whole congregation seemed to break into groups and hush up, just to look at me. I didn't pretend to notice this delicate ovation, but walked slowly forward, and with a becoming blush on my cheek, while E. E. andthat child kept bowing and shaking hands with everybody they met.
After I had seated myself in one of the great splint-bottomed chairs that stood in dozens on the stoop, the crowd felt at liberty to go on again—and it did. A flock of birds couldn't have twittered and tittered and flitted more joyaceously than the females crowded together on that stoop.
But I soon had something else to look at. Down in front of the hotel a lot of horses were prancing to and fro, up and down, breaking into a run here, wheeling round, going back, standing still, and generally cutting about in a promiscuous manner, as if they were dying to have a dance in the street.
Sisters, in all your born days, you never saw anything like those horses! Slender, smooth as glass, with eyes like balls of fire, they just took the shine off from everything in the horse line that I ever set eyes on. But the animals were nothing compared to the funny-looking creatures that rode them. A circus was nothing to them—neither is a theatre. Some of them were dressed in red, some in yellow, some in blue; one had on purple—all fitting just as tight as the skin to a rabbit's back. Each one had a boy's cap on his head; and, in fact, they all looked like boys out on a spree. There was a place just above the long tavern where most of these fellows always took their horses after a little run and blow—that was a little, cubby house, built up high from the ground, in which some men stood like captains on a steamboat.
By and by there was a stir among the horses and a hustle among the men.
"They're going to start! they're going to start!" says everybody to everybody else. A flag on the little house seemed to break down. Then off the whole lot flew like a flock of wild birds. The flying horses rushed along the road, beating time on the hard ground, and fairly taking the breath from one's lips.
I gave a little scream, and jumped up. The whole crowdrushed forward, and seemed as if it would pour itself over the railing of the long stoop.
"Where have they gone?" says I. "What has become of 'em?"
"Here they come—here they come," shouted the whole crowd, answering me all at once.
And they did come skimming along the road like wildfire—flash—flash—now two horses abreast—now one ahead—now another—then a sudden pull up, and the brown horse had won. Now it seemed to me as if the whole squad came up pretty much at the same time, but the whole crowd fell to clapping hands over the brown horse. I clapped too, and swung out my handkerchief as well as the rest; for when a multitude go into a thing like that it just sets one wild.
Then the flag took another fall, and off went another squad of horses, and around the hill they went out of sight. Then came a stormy sound of hoofs, and another streak of lightning dash in which a chestnut-colored horse showed his head first, and then came another rolling thunder-clap from the crowd, and "Joe Daniels has beat," ran from lip to lip, as if "Joe Daniels" had been up for the Presidential election and got all the votes.
Then the people cooled down, and, after a long wait, there was another rush, as if a whole training band had broke loose. We had hardly time to draw a deep breath, when they all came sweeping round in front of the long tavern, two of 'em just a little ahead, running so even and so fast, that I really believed that both of them beat the other, till the crowd began to clap and shout Alarm, which frightened me, for I thought something dreadful had happened; but Dempster hushed me up, saying it was the name of the horse that had won the race, and he was glad of it, for his friend Travers was one of the warmest-hearted, kindest fellows in the world, and ought to have a horse win every day of his life. This friendly little speech set me clapping my hands, both for the horse Alarm, his orange-colored rider, and the jolly-hearted man who owns him.
There was a great commotion after this. The whole crowd was in a wild whirl of excitement. All the ladies were talking about gloves and pools, and gentleman riders, while the gentlemen talked fast, looked eager, and were restless as caged birds. Something was going to happen now, I was sure of that.
"Do tell me what is the matter," says I to a gentleman that cousin had just introduced to me, "everybody is so excited."
"Yes," says he, "all on the keyvive."
What queer names they do have for horses. Alarm had just come in ahead, and now Keyvive.
"What kind of a horse is the Keyvive?" says I.
He didn't seem to hear me. No wonder, for that very minute five horses, with such nice-looking fellows on their backs, took a start, like a flock of wild deer, and went up the road so swift that before I could see them they were gone.
"It is the hurdle-race," says the same gentleman, "splendid—splendid; what a leap!"
His eyes were bright as stars; they fairly danced in his head.
I sprang up, for a great wind seemed to be rushing around the hill. Then I gave a scream, for some wicked person had built a fence right across the road, and those five horses were galloping like mad right toward it.
"Oh, stop them—stop them—for mercy's sake!" says I, a-clasping my hands, and pleading wildly to every one around. "They'll be killed—they don't see that awful fence."
While I was screaming, the whole five horses came, one after another, sailed right over the fence, dived down like hen-hawks after a chicken, and away toward another fence that choked up the road. Before I could shriek out, and warn them, over they came, like a whirlwind, without touching the fence or seeming to care—over, and away up the road, taking one's breath with them.
"Mercy on me! what a providential escape!" says I to thegentleman; "what wicked wretch could have heaped up things in the road? I do hope they'll be found out and sent to State's prison. Why, it's just as bad as blocking up a train of cars. Such nice-looking riders, too!"
The gentleman looked a trifle puzzled, then he smiled a little funnily, and says he:
"Perhaps you do not understand that this is a 'hurdle-race.'"
"No," says I; "they told me that it would be horse-racing—nothing worse than that."
"Well," says he, "it is nothing worse than that, only a little more dangerous, and to you ladies more interesting, because the riders are all gentlemen."
"What, those men in the caps, gentlemen—not circus-riders, nor nothing?"
He laughed, and says he:
"I dare say no one of them has ever been in a circus since he left off tunics, but they have learned to hunt, and love these hard leaps."
"You don't mean to say that they skiver over such fences on purpose?" says I.
"Indeed they do, and build them higher and broader every year."
"You don't say so," says I, feeling my eyes open wide.
"They love the peril, for that increases the excitement."
"What if some of them were to be flung head over heels?"
"Oh, that has happened."
"Not to-day?"
"Yes, but fortunately the man was not killed."
I felt myself a-growing pale.
"But they don't know of it. Everybody is laughing," says I.
"Yes, it is generally known, but that is a part of the excitement. In a crowd like this, it is difficult to realize trouble or death."
"How strange!" says I, putting the handkerchief that Ihad torn with hard shaking into my pocket, with a deeply penitent feeling.
"It is strange," says he; "but this is no place for deep feeling, or you would not see so many smiling faces around you, for a gentleman who owns some of the race-horses, and came up only a day or two ago to see them tried, is lying dead in his home now."
My heart sank. I felt tears crowding up to my eyes. Death in one place—all this gorgeous confusion and wild gayety here. A lonely widow, weeping bitter tears; all these gay fluttering young people reckless and happy, in spite of it.
I arose, and looked around me. No one seemed to feel this man's death. Never in my whole life had I been in such a whirlpool of gayety. There was not a sad or thoughtful face in the crowd. Yet many of the persons there had known the man who lay dead in the city. I had never heard of him till then, but no smiles came to my lips after that mournful knowledge reached me. In the midst of all this hilarious gayety I felt the shadow of human suffering creeping over me, and I rode home from the race-park in sad silence.